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Stadia died because no one trusts Google

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Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#51

Post by RedShift1 »

Dalewyn wrote: post #30
cududa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously this isn't the same thing, but yes - this seems right. But, I remember my first time going to Google's campus in 2010 and connecting to their guest wifi network. 1Gbps! Insanely cool! Pulled up gmail and google docs and it worked PERFECTLY! My first thought was "...oh this is why their webapps suck - they have no idea how it's being used in the real world where latency is above 10ms"

For a specific example of latency incompetency that immediately came to mind while reading this: Chrome. Chrome will not run properly on first execution, as in ran for the first time after a cold start of the computer, when executed off a HDD. Why? Because the HDD takes too long to read off data. Chrome expects SSD latency and fuck your computer if it's not residing on one. When executed off a HDD, I've found Chrome…

This seems weird to me, can you define "run properly"?

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#52

Post by herendin »

polio wrote: post #41
Dalewyn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a specific example of latency incompetency that immediately came to mind while reading this: Chrome. Chrome will not run properly on first execution, as in ran for the first time after a cold start of the computer, when executed off a HDD. Why? Because the HDD takes too long to read off data. Chrome expects SSD latency and fuck your computer if it's not residing on one. When executed off a HDD, I've found Chrome…

In the first-boot-on-HDD scenario, why would latency make the program fail to start at all? I'd expect it to just start slowly.

Unanticipated race condition perhaps? A process takes 2 minutes instead of 5 seconds, and then a later part of the startup fails because it has no way to handle the totally unexpected lack of data

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#53

Post by MonkeyMalarky »

ndiddy wrote: post #12
bamboozled wrote: post #9

I have some business stuff hosted on GCP. I'm actually starting to worry about that, I think it would be weird if GCP was discontinued but I don't know anymore?

You might want to look into migrating: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/google-brass-set-202...

Aw heck, we're all in on GCP. How much stock can I put in an article from 3 years ago?

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#54

Post by snek_case »

chrisseaton wrote: post #31
j-kent wrote: post #19

Imagine if you had a Netflix subscription, and still had to pay for every movie you watched. This is what Stadia felt like to me.

Streaming Netflix is relatively simple - each customer just needs to read a stored stream. I think they even put dedicated servers at edges like ISPs, so it's not even on the public internet! Streaming a game requires an actual real GPU being (I guess) exclusively used by that customer while they're playing. Not feasible to put those in edge locations. Completely different set of costs.

They could run multiple games per GPU depending on the resolution and how demanding the games are, but yes, it's definitely more expensive than just serving a stream.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#55

Post by doubled112 »

Dalewyn wrote: post #30
cududa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously this isn't the same thing, but yes - this seems right. But, I remember my first time going to Google's campus in 2010 and connecting to their guest wifi network. 1Gbps! Insanely cool! Pulled up gmail and google docs and it worked PERFECTLY! My first thought was "...oh this is why their webapps suck - they have no idea how it's being used in the real world where latency is above 10ms"

For a specific example of latency incompetency that immediately came to mind while reading this: Chrome. Chrome will not run properly on first execution, as in ran for the first time after a cold start of the computer, when executed off a HDD. Why? Because the HDD takes too long to read off data. Chrome expects SSD latency and fuck your computer if it's not residing on one. When executed off a HDD, I've found Chrome…

I've seen this exact behaviour in a few Electron apps on a Raspberry Pi 400.

Make sure nothing else is running, start the application, expect failure, start it again, works as expected.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#57

Post by Gigachad »

ThatPlayer wrote: post #27
j-kent wrote: post #19

Imagine if you had a Netflix subscription, and still had to pay for every movie you watched. This is what Stadia felt like to me.

I think that was a failure on their marketing: you didn't actually need to pay for the subscription for the games.

Which made me trust it even less. How is it a sustainable business model for them to run the hardware and platform for the next 10 years without recurring revenue.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#58

Post by cced »

bushbaba wrote: post #37
linsomniac wrote: post #28

Personally, I got an offer of a free Stadia controller from Google, took them up on it. It also included an offer for several games free. I searched through the list of games and, honestly, couldn't tell one from the other. They all seemed to be basically the same thing, some sort of FP adventure. My Stadia controller never ended up showing up, but the games were so uninteresting that I never pursued it. My BIL order…

Game developers lacked trust in Google, and didn't want to invest on the platform. So lack of trust also prevented Google from getting that huge game library.

Sounds like Google is finally reaping the benefits of all those shutdowns.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#59

Post by vkou »

aeturnum wrote: post #14

The thing that I find odd about Google is that it feels like they drink their own coolaid. Reports I've seen suggest that nearly no one knew this was coming. Teams who have been working on ports for months were blind-sided. Employees generally did not know. It just seems like a very poor way to run a business. It feels sloppy and needlessly messy. Especially when providing soft landings is so possible for a company w…

> Reports I've seen suggest that nearly no one knew this was coming

When you're making a decision like this, you have to go full steam ahead until you decide to stop. Because not going full steam ahead compromises you in the event that you choose not to cancel.

It's like a negotiation. If you're thinking of completely folding to your counterparty, the last thing you ever want to do is tell them that they have you on the ropes.

Re: Stadia died because no one trusts Google

#60

Post by Dalewyn »

Gigachad wrote: post #57
ThatPlayer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that was a failure on their marketing: you didn't actually need to pay for the subscription for the games.

Which made me trust it even less. How is it a sustainable business model for them to run the hardware and platform for the next 10 years without recurring revenue.

For large corporations and companies, it is entirely reasonable to have a couple businesses run red ink which are propped up by other businesses running surplus black ink.

For a non-Google example: Costco and their roasted whole chickens they sell for $5 USD each. There is no fucking way Costco makes a profit, let alone break even, on those, but they do it and run the red ink anyway because the customers that come to buy them will also grab other stuff on the way out, generating black ink to offset and surpass the red ink.

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